“I don’t… understand.”
“I think…” I said. “We got out?”
“I don’t know…” Karma muttered. “How do you think they fit awholecabin down here?”
A chuckle rose in my chest, and he shot me a dirty look.
Still, that strange silence was deafening.
No… not quite silence…
I focused on the massive pine trees stretching above us. They swayed in the wind, rustling against one another, and there was a chorus of distant birds, bickering back and forth between the branches.
But no howls, or pain, or insanity…
Karma tilted his head, like the cabin might begin explaining how it had arrived in Anarchy in one piece.
We watched as Umbra and Sin helped Vandle up the steps. Crescent was clutching her pencil case against her chest, eyes wide, as she trailed them.
When they’d vanished through the doors, I tilted my head toward Karma. “You know, I don’t think it could fit in Anarchy.”
“Has to, or how could it be here?” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Hmm… Maybe in the square?
No, I decided. The silence was too much.
There was nothing that could make Anarchy this quiet. And that meant… “Well, while you try to figure it out, I’m going to go and claim the best bedroom.”
He straightened, eyes snapping right to me. Before I could say another thing, he was crashing past me and through the double doors of the beautiful wooden cabin.
And finally—finally, I think it hit me.
We… were out.
I’d spent a long time imagining what it might be like when we got out of Anarchy. There were a thousand obstacles—after tests and gruelling check-ins, we might be deemed stable. And then the old grind would begin.
Finding a way to stay above water.
Work.
Survival.
It would be easier this time—I’d have a pack at my back, and no crippling illness to make it all but impossible. It would be enough—it had to be enough.
When we’d found Crescent, though, those pathways had all seemed bleak and inadequate.
But this…
This was freedom from all of that.
A chance to be able to care for her—for the whole pack.
54
The Institute
An organization with the stated purpose of protecting alphas and omegas. They developed the injection administered to omegas, which renders them less volatile and ensures their alpha offspring are less unpredictable.
